We All Play
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A BEST CHILDREN’S BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, Washington Post, New York Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, Globe and Mail, Horn Book, and Boston Globe
STARRED Reviews in Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, The Horn Book, School Library Journal
A 2022 Best Book for Babies
From Julie Flett, the beloved author and illustrator of Birdsong, comes a joyous new book about playtime for babies, toddlers, and kids up to age 7.
Animals and kids love to play! This wonderful book celebrates playtime and the connection between children and the natural world. Beautiful illustrations show:
birds who chase and chirp!
bears who wiggle and wobble!
whales who swim and squirt!
owls who peek and peep!
and a diverse group of kids who love to do the same, shouting:
We play too! / kimêtawânaw mîna
At the end of the book, animals and children gently fall asleep after a fun day of playing outside, making this book a great bedtime story. A beautiful ode to the animals and humans we share our world with, We All Play belongs on every bookshelf.
This book also includes:
A glossary of Cree words for wild animals in the book
A pronunciation guide and link to audio pronunciation recordings
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cree-Métis artist Flett (Birdsong) starts with quiet, elegant portraits of animals at play attended by brief, motion-filled lines of text. Velvety dark brown rabbits jump across the page ("Animals hide/ and hop"); a fox investigates a turtle as kits peer timidly from the page's edge ("and sniff/ and sneak"); an owlet peeks out from the page as others cluster together, their new wings delicately etched ("and peek/and peep"). Then a group of small children of various skin tones appears, leaping, jumping, and lying on their backs in tall grass as butterflies flit above. "We play too! kimêtawânaw mîna" they say. An author's note defines the Cree phrase as "living in relationship and in care to one another" and discusses the kinship between animals and people, whether "running and hopping through the grass or... pondering creatures in the creek." In spare compositions, Flett aptly underlines this idea by showing animals and humans embracing play in similar ways (snakes slide, children sled down a hill in the snow), until at last, "slowly, side by side," everyone sleeps. Also includes a glossary and pronunciation guide. Ages up to 7.
